Search - Superheroins :: Love & Pain

Masterpiece!

Per | Stockholm, Sweden | 11/01/2001

(5 out of 5 stars)

"The final album from this seminal 1980's deathrock-/postpunk-band, Love and Pain is also the only one of their three albums to have been released on cd so far. They sound like a melodic mix between US punk, Black Sabbath and perhaps Christian Death. The best things about them are the wonderfully crunchy and rich sound of Eva O's guitar and her deep, emotional singing.
Where the first two albums are a bit uneven this one has almost no weak points whatsoever. It is, more or less, a masterpiece from start to finish, even if the livetracks that round off the album are not as great as the studiomaterial. They were not included on the european version, and I personally prefer listening to that one, as it contains only the tracks originally intended to be on the album. But if you really like Superheroines it's the US version you will want to get your hands on in order to get the bonustracks. The first song on the album, "Children of the Light", might just be one of the greatest and catchiest songs ever written.
As you probably know Eva O, who wrote most of the songs, played guitar and sang in Superheroines went on to form Shadow Project together with Rozz Williams. If you enjoy Shadow Project you will almost certainly like Love and Pain, unless you only fancy Shadow Project because of Williams involvement.
The cover of "Warning" is kind of funny, since the gals must have figured they were doing a Black Sabbath cover, while it is in fact a song written by another band that Black Sabbath in turn covered on their debut LP. So, it's a cover of a cover.
Anyhow, Love and Pain is an album which belongs in your collection regardless if you're a goth, punkrocker or just a person of good taste. Buy!"

Much more than you'd expect...

GlamorousHeretic | Baton Rouge, LA, USA | 01/12/2003

(5 out of 5 stars)

"I bought this CD on a whim, partly because I was curious to get acquainted with the style of Eva O. Most people probably know her best from her affiliation with the late, great Rozz Williams, but I'm now convinced that her former all-girl, Black Sabbath-inspired band, the Super Heroines, is just as worthy of recognition as Christian Death. It would be hard to describe the sound of the Super Heroines, since they obviously drew inspiration from various bands and genres, but if it were necessary to categorize their music, the "deathrock" label would do some justice, while there are hints of punk and hard rock influence as well.Eva O. may not have the voice of a muse, but the woman deserves a lot of credit for other talents. Her songwriting skills are impressive at the very least, and the lyrics are much more engaging than one might expect from a band whose name is hardly mentioned among the deathrock giants of the early/mid eighties. "Children of the Light," "Remembering Love," and "Raising Bars" offer hints of Eva's capabilities with creating strong, solid riffs, and the choruses are also pretty catchy. "Children of the Light" sounds like it could be a theme song for an 80's children cartoon, but it's still one of the top tracks on this release. The other girls (whose names I don't know, obviously) help to liven up many of the songs as they chime in periodically to add a haunting feature to the overall experience.This CD is definitely worth the price; each track has something to offer without requiring too much patience to the listener, and Love and Pain would easily become a staple CD in your collection if you can value the talents of overlooked bands like the Super Heroines. For a group that sounds like a hybrid mix of Black Sabbath and the Bubblegum Crisis anime soundtrack artists, they're surprisingly entertaining, and far superior to any of the later all-girl punk groups that followed in their footsteps. Buy this."